The Impact of Labour-Force Participation on Childbearing Behaviour: Pro-Cyclical Fertility in Sweden during the 1980s and the 1990s

During the last two decades, Sweden has experienced strong fluctuations both in its economy and in its level of childbearing. A period of high employment and increasing fertility has been followed by a period of lower employment and decreasing fertility since the beginning of the 1990s. In this paper, we use register data for Swedish women in order to examine how various types of attachment to the labour market affect women's propensity to give birth at different parities. Specifically, we show what impact changes in women's employment status have had on recorded fertility trends in Sweden. We find that women who have relatively low levels of income and women who are enrolled as students generally have lower fertility than other women. We also find that a rise in the number of women with such characteristics can explain part of the decrease in fertility during the 1990s. It is evident, however, that other factors, working at the macro level, also have to be considered when one wants to explain the fluctuating fertility of Sweden. Social policy is one such factor. In sum, we find a pattern of pro-cyclical fertility, where levels of female earnings are positively related to levels of childbearing.     

“单独二孩”政策的利与弊

"单独二孩"政策有利有弊,其直接意义在于缓解"一个孩子"政策所带来的问题。该政策的积极效果表现在:可以适当提高生育水平;适当缓解中国人口年龄结构的老化;群众有更多自主选择生育的权利;家庭结构得到平衡发展;缓解出生人口漏报;缓解出生性别比过度偏高;缓解人口素质逆淘汰;推动计划生育工作综合改革。然而,由于政策的调整在一定程度上仍然属于"硬着陆",必然会带来一些问题,主要包括:近几年会出现符合单独二孩政策夫妇的集中生育;很多高危人群生育会导致孕产妇死亡率上升和出生缺陷发生率的上升;政策调整本身就带来了生育的不公平或机会的不平等。建议:用奖励的方式鼓励年轻妇女晚生育第二个孩子;设立高危妊娠咨询和指导中心;政府为无机会和能力再生育的家庭承担更多责任。     

Divorce-risk trends in Sweden 1971–1993

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an updated system of annual indexes of divorce risks and to use the system to display trends in divorce risks for Swedish women over the years since 1971. Divorce-risk trends turn out to have been quite different for women at different parities. Trends for women in their first marriage (the majority) are also somewhat different from trends in later marriages. After a spurt in divorces at parity 0 connected with a divorce reform in 1974, divorce risks have been quite stable for women at this parity, but they have increased steadily among married mothers, mostly as an effect of an increasing prevalence of premarital childbearing. Our indexes are produced by an indirect standardization of register data with respect to women's age at marriage, duration of marriage, and order of marriage. We also recommend standardization with respect to an indicator of premarital childbearing, which is particularly important in a population with extensive nonmarital cohabitation.     

Pathways to a Third Child in Sweden

The transition from two to three children is investigated, using data on Swedish women's fertility behaviour and labour force participation over a period of some 20 years ending in 1992/93. Two questions are examined: what is the relationship between working life and childbearing of two-child mothers? Are there differences in fertility between cohabiting and married couples? Several paths to the third child are identified, one of women with a university education and another of women with preference for more children, reflected by marriage after having the first or the second child or by persistent working experience followed by household work.     

Deferment of the First Birth and Fluctuating Fertility in Sweden

In Sweden, as in other industrialized countries, a decades-old decline in fertility rates has been accompanied by a rise in the age at first birth. In contrast to other industrialized countries, however, fertility rates rose sharply in the 1980s before plummeting in the 1990s. In this paper we apply hazard regression to data from the 1992 Swedish Family Survey, supplemented by annual earnings data linked to individuals and by annual time series of national-level economic indicators, to investigate the predictors of the timing of the first birth of women in Sweden since the mid-1960s. The discovery that both individual characteristics and aggregate-level factors influence the timing of the first birth casts light on both the continuing trend of postponement of the first birth and annual fluctuations in first-birth rates.     

Trends in Marriage Formation in Sweden 1971–1993

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a system of annual indices of the risks of marriage and remarriage and to use the system to display such marriage risks for Swedish women over the years since 1971. Our indices are produced by applying indirect standardization to register data. The propensity to marry decreased considerably during the 1970s and it has continued to decrease also during the first half of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. The decrease in marriage risks is mostly due to a decreased propensity to marry among never-married women with no children. The decrease is not so strong for never-married women with children and for divorced women. A sharp, but only temporary, deviation from the general pattern of Swedish marriage-risk trends occurred in 1989, when the number of marriages formed increased dramatically in response to the near-abolition of the public widow's pensions for women who were not married at the beginning of 1990.     

The timing of first birth

“The timing of first birth” is taken to mean the distribution of first births among a cohort of women. (1) How large is the final proportion of women who have at least one birth and (2) what is the distribution of women by age at first birth? “The percentage of non-fecund women” and “the age-specific risk for a fecund woman of remaining childless” are useful parameters in predicting final childlessness. These parameters are estimated. It is found that the risk of a fecund woman remaining childless is substantial even at the most common childbearing age. The effect of postponement of births on final childlessness is demonstrated and quantified. It is shown that the higher level of childlessness among women with long education can be explained by postponement of childbearing. The expression “later means fewer” is also true for first births. A method of predicting first birth rates, presented earlier by the author, is discussed and shown to give a good fit to Swedish data.     

How Similar are Cohabiting and Married Parents? Second Conception Risks by Union Type in the United States and Across Europe

The increase in births within cohabitation in the United States and across Europe suggests that cohabitation and marriage have become more similar with respect to childbearing. However, little is known about additional childbearing after first birth. Using harmonized union and fertility histories from surveys in 15 countries, this study examines second conception risks leading to a live birth for women who have given birth within a union. Results show that women who continue to cohabit after birth have significantly lower second conception risks than married women in all countries except those in Eastern Europe, even when controlling for union duration, union dissolution, age at first birth, and education. Pooled models indicate that differences in the second conception risks by union type between Eastern and Western Europe are significant. Pooled models including an indicator for the diffusion of cohabitation show that when first births within cohabitation are rare, cohabiting women have significantly lower second conception risks than married women. As first births within cohabitation increase, differences in second conception risks for cohabiting and married women narrow. But as the percent increases further, the differentials increase again, suggesting that cohabitation and marriage are not becoming equivalent settings for additional childbearing. However, I also find that in all countries except Estonia, women who marry after first birth have second conception risks similar to couples married at first birth, indicating that the sequence of marriage and childbearing does not matter to fertility as much as the act of marrying itself.     

Where Are the Babies? Labor Market Conditions and Fertility in Europe

Cross-country differences in both the age at first birth and fertility are substantial in Europe. This paper uses distinct fluctuations in unemployment rates across European countries during the 1980s and the 1990s combined with broad differences in their labor market arrangements to analyze the associations between fertility timing and the changing economic environment with close to 50,000 women from 13 European countries. First, it employs time-varying measures of aggregate market conditions in each woman??s country as covariates and second, it adds micro-measures of each woman??s labor market history to the models. High and persistent unemployment in a country is associated with delays in childbearing (and second births). The association is robust to diverse measures of unemployment and to controls for family-friendly policies. Besides moderate unemployment, a large public employment sector (which provides security and benefits) is coupled with faster transitions to all births. Women with temporary contracts, mostly in Southern Europe, are the least likely to give birth to a second child.     

Modern family initiation in sweden: Experience of women born between 1936 and 1960

This report investigates trends in the initial phases of the family-building process for Swedish women in five-year cohorts born between 1936 and 1960, using life-table techniques. Non-marital cohabitation was much more widespread in our pre-World War II cohort than has been realized previously. Among never-married women, first-birth fertility was remarkably stable for those in and those not in a consensual union alike. Strong increases in non-marital fertility have resulted from progressively increasing exposure to the higher fertility of consensual unions instead of to the very low fertility of single women. Cohabitational first-birth fertility is not high compared with marital fertility.     

Religion and Fertility in Western Europe: Trends Across Cohorts in Britain,France and the Netherlands

The role of religion in explaining fertility differences is often overlooked in demographic studies, particularly in Western Europe, where there has been a substantial decline in institutional forms of religious adherence. The current study explores the changing relationships between religion and childbearing in Britain, France and the Netherlands. Using data from the Generations and Gender Programme and the British Household Panel Survey, religious differences in completed fertility and the transition to first birth are explored across cohorts of women. In addition, a longitudinal analysis is employed to examine the influence of religion on subsequent childbearing. Although the secularization paradigm assumes that the influence of religion on individual behavior will diminish over time, it is found that religious affiliation and practice continue to be important determinants of fertility and family formation patterns. However, there is some variation in the relationship between religion and fertility across countries; while in France and the Netherlands fertility gaps by religiosity are either consistent or increasing, in Britain, this gap appears to have narrowed over time. These findings suggest that fertility differences by religion also depend on the particular social context of religious institutions in each country.     

Racing Against the Biological Clock? Childbearing and Sterility Among Men and Women in Second Unions in France

In developed countries, rising rates of union disruption have induced an increase in the share of people experiencing several fertile partnerships during their fertile life-span. However, from the large-scale 1999 French Family Survey, in the 1939–1954 birth cohorts it appears that completed fertility of repartnered men is slightly higher than that of never-separated men while repartnered women have fertility levels similar to those who remain in a first intact partnership. Following this observation, this article aims to study whether people, and especially women, have enough time to have children in the context of second union before they become limited by the “biological clock”. Using a cure model, we find that once age-related sterility is controlled for, the decrease in risk of having children with age is not visible anymore up to age 40. This offers some evidence that people in their second partnership, especially women, are constrained in their childbearing by the decline in fecundity with age. Additionally, childless women seem to respond proactively to the decline in fecundity with age by accelerating childbearing.     

Does Economic Advancement ‘Cause’ a Re-increase in Fertility? An Empirical Analysis for OECD Countries (1960–2007)

In the light of the recent reversal of fertility trends in several highly developed countries, we investigate the impact of economic development and its components on fertility in OECD countries from 1960 to 2007. We find that the strong negative correlation between GDP per capita does no longer hold for high levels of per capita economic output; the relation and fertility instead seems to turn into positive from a certain threshold level of economic development on. Survival of an inverse J-shaped association between GDP per capita and fertility is found when controlling for birth postponement, omitted variable bias, non-stationarity and endogeneity. However, gaps between actual and predicted fertility rates show implicitly the importance of factors influencing fertility above and over per capita income. By decomposing GDP per capita into several components, we identify female employment as co-varying factor for the fertility rebound that can be observed in several highly developed countries. Pointing out to important differences with regard to the compatibility between childbearing and female employment, our results suggest that fertility increases are likely to be small if economic development is not accompanied by institutional changes that improve parents’ opportunities to combine work and family life.     

辽宁省出生人口萎缩与生育政策调整研究

辽宁省育龄妇女数量和出生人口数量多年来一直呈减少趋势,生育水平已经进入超低状态,尽管面临新的生育高峰,但由于生育旺盛期育龄妇女人数的减少,也不会引起出生人口的较大反弹.因此,必须在适当的时候调整生育政策,将总和生育率提高到一定的水平,以维持合理的人口再生产.     

上海市生育意愿30年的演变历程

通过对1980年初以来上海开展的数次生育意愿调查结果的回顾与梳理,展现了过去30年上海人口生育意愿(主要是意愿子女数和意愿子女性别)的演变历程:意愿子女数呈不断减少趋势;不同群体间生育意愿数虽存在差异,但都低于2个孩子。同时,总和生育率、孩次率等多项指标显示,上海人口的实际生育已长期处于很低水平。文中历次调查的意愿生育子女数与相应年份总和生育率的纵向比较可表明,在低生育水平社会,人们的实际生育水平一般低于所报告的意愿生育水平。     

Fertility Decline During Albania’s Societal Crisis and its Subsequent Consolidation

Cross-sectional comparisons of the decline in fertility in former socialist countries point to a bi-phasic response: a crisis-induced family limitation followed by the postponement of childbearing during economic and political consolidation. In this article, the last two decades of Albania’s fertility transition are documented. The bi-phasic response model is tested in a period analysis of adaptations in marriage and parity-specific fertility to the socio-economic and political transformations since the fall of communist rule. We find that the timing and patterns of changes in Albanian family behaviours generally adhere to the model. Socio-economic differentials and trends are congruent with the major role played by the crisis and structural change. However, the Albanian case also highlights the enduring importance of traditional family formation models during the crisis, as well as among specific subpopulations more recently. These results are discussed with reference to a sociological account of Albanian society.     

Assessing Short-Term Fertility Intentions and Their Realisation Using the Generations and Gender Survey: Pitfalls and Challenges

The use of fertility intention questions to study individual childbearing behaviour has developed rapidly in recent decades. In Europe, the Generations and Gender Surveys are the main sources of cross-national data on fertility intentions and their realisation. This study investigates how an inconsistent implementation of a question about wanting a child now affects the cross-country comparability of intentions to have a child within the next three years and their realisation. We conduct our analysis separately for women and men at prime and late reproductive ages in Austria, France, Italy and Poland. The results show that the overall share of respondents intending to have a child at some point in their life is similar in all four analysed countries. However, once the time horizon and the degree of certainty of fertility intentions are included, substantial cross-country differences appear, particularly in terms of proceptive behaviour and, consequently, the realisation of fertility intentions. We conclude that the inconsistent questionnaire adaptation makes it very difficult to assess the role of country context in the realisation of childbearing intentions.     

Recent Mortality Trend Reversal in Russia: Are Regions Following the Same Tempo?

After several decades of negative trends and short-term fluctuations, life expectancy has been increasing in Russia since 2004. Between 2003 and 2014, the length of life rose by 6.6 years among males and by 4.6 years among females. While positive trends in life expectancy are observed in all regions of Russia, these trends are unfolding differently in different regions. First, regions entered the phase of life expectancy growth at different points in time. Second, the age- and cause-specific components of the gains in life expectancy and the number of years added vary noticeably. In this paper, we apply decomposition techniques—specifically, the stepwise replacement algorithm—to examine the age- and cause-specific components of the changes in inter-regional disparities during the current period of health improvement. The absolute inter-regional disparities in length of life, measured by the population-weighted standard deviation, decreased slightly between 2003 and 2014, from 3.3 to 3.2 years for males, and from 2.0 to 1.8 years for females. The decomposition of these small changes by ages and causes of death shows that these shifts were the result of diverse effects of mortality convergence at young and middle ages, and of mortality divergence at older ages. With respect to causes of death, the convergence is mainly attributable to external causes, while the inter-regional divergence of trends is largely determined by cardiovascular diseases. The two major cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, are currently pioneering mortality improvements in Russia and are making the largest contributions to the inter-regional divergence.     

Fertility Behaviour under Income Uncertainty

This paper develops a two-period stochastic model of fertility behaviour to provide a possible explanation for the recent sharp decline in birth rates in the former Soviet Republics and Eastern European countries. Due to the existence of irreversibilities associated with the childbearing decision and the option of postponing childbearing for a later time, it may be optimal for individuals to postpone childbearing during times of increased income uncertainty.     

Sub-Replacement Fertility Intentions in Austria

Combining the data of the 1986–2001 Microcensus surveys, I reconstruct trends in fertility intentions across time and over the life course of Austrian women born since the 1950s. Young adults in Austria expressed fertility intentions that were below the replacement-level threshold as early as in 1986 and women born since the mid-1950s consistently desired fewer than two children on average throughout their reproductive lives. A two-child family norm, however, still clearly dominates the fertility intentions of different age, cohort and education groups. Uncertainty about childbearing intentions is rather common, especially among younger and childless respondents. Different assumptions about reproductive preferences of undecided respondents affect estimates of the mean intended family size. Although Austrians were among the first in Europe to express low fertility intentions, their position is no longer unique. By the early 2000s, young women in a number of other European countries also expressed sub-replacement fertility intentions.